


I'd be safe and warm if I was in LA

by radioactiveRat



Category: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Rick and Cliff being hopelessly in love, Rick being surprisingly good with kids, Short & Sweet, Small Towns, Snowball Fights, Winter, two old men on a date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28854030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioactiveRat/pseuds/radioactiveRat
Summary: Rick and Cliff get sent up north for shooting, they decide to stay a day in the snowy small town as a romantic getaway from the busy life in California.
Relationships: Cliff Booth/Rick Dalton
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23





	I'd be safe and warm if I was in LA

Cliff wasn’t used to cold in any way. He lived in warm places throughout all his life and very rarely stepped foot somewhere that could be considered _cold._ At war maybe, but the feeling of being cold wasn’t the one that really etched itself into his mind, there were plenty of other things to remember about that time than the temperature of the place. 

That’s mostly why Cliff wasn’t very keen on going up north for shooting. Him and Rick got sent to a small town in Oregon to film a few scenes in the snow that were apparently so crucial to the plot they couldn’t be filmed elsewhere, which was nothing else but a bother. Luckily Cliff’s stunts didn’t take too long to film, so he spent most of the shoot in a moderately warm trailer drinking hot beverages. 

Rick didn’t complain much, he seemed to have even quite liked the weather. Apparently he was used to it from his childhood in Missouri, and missed it. He was almost childishly happy seeing the snow when they arrived, and wouldn’t stop making fun of Cliff for not enjoying it at all, although Cliff had plenty to enjoy, just seeing Rick in a good mood. 

Cliff couldn’t say no to him when he was like that, so when he proposed they should stay a day longer to explore the town the stuntman reluctantly agreed. (It wasn’t until Rick called it a romantic getaway that Cliff actually got on board with the idea.) 

The town was quite boring, they both learned that pretty quickly, so the date became just a calm walk in the park that both of them actually enjoyed. Cliff wished he could have brought Brandy with him, she would have loved seeing the snow. 

At some point the two sat down on a bench in front of a large, open space. There were plenty of families there, lots of kids building snowmen and playing in the snow with their parents. It looked like the whole population of the town was there, and the two men enjoyed a place that wasn’t as crowded and constantly loud as LA was. 

‘I know the town’s b-boring, but you gotta admit it’s pretty.’ Rick said, lost in his thoughts as he looked at the people around them. 

‘Yeah, sure.’ Cliff said, not really thinking much about his response. Truth be told he really wanted to go home already, or at least somewhere inside. 

Rick took a glance at his boyfriend, noticing how much he was shivering. 

‘Are you really this cold?’ Rick said, with a bit of a laugh in his voice. 

‘Come on, are you not?’ Cliff asked, to which Rick just shrugged. ‘I feel like my fingers are gonna freeze over.’ 

Saying that Cliff took his hands out of the pockets of his jacket and breathed on them a bunch of times, hoping to get himself at least a little warmed up. 

‘You didn’t b-bring any gloves?’ 

‘I didn’t think I’d need ‘em.’ Cliff responded, voice muffled by his palms over his mouth. 

‘Here...’ Rick started as he himself took his gloved hand out of his pocket. ‘Give me your hand.’ 

Cliff did as he ordered. Rick proceeded to stretch out the material of his own glove and guided Cliff’s hand to get inside it. 

‘What’s this?’ Cliff laughed as his hand finally lied perfectly on top of Rick’s inside the glove. 

‘You gonna get your hand warm in no time.’ Rick said and softly chuckled. Cliff noticed how pretty his face looked in the cold, with his cheeks, nose and ears reddened slightly. ‘It’s a l-little awkward I know, but it works. I used to do it a lot with m-my classmates when I was a kid.’ 

‘Great excuse to hold a girl’s hand.’ Cliff said under his nose. 

Rick laughed at that. ‘Actually...’ he leaned in closer to Cliff and lowered his voice. ‘The first time I held hands with a boy was like that.’ 

‘Really?’ Cliff said, teasingly. ‘Got in any trouble for that?’ 

‘S-surprisingly not.’ Rick laughed. ‘We were k-kids and y-you know, it’s an easy choice between p-p-potentially being called queer and getting frostbite.’ 

‘Right.’ Cliff chuckled, enjoying Rick’s little story. 

They rarely talked about their life before they met each other. They understood it would only get the mood down, but the two liked when the other would tell a happy memory once in a while. 

Cliff shivered again, involuntarily. His hand might have been warm inside Rick’s glove but the rest of his body was still exposed to the cold. 

Rick noticed that, he scooted a little closer to Cliff on the bench, but still kept enough distance so they wouldn’t look too comfortable with each other. 

‘I’d love to hug you.’ Rick said, his voice quiet, almost a whisper. 

‘You don’t gotta, I’m fine.’ Cliff reassured, seeing Rick’s sad look. ‘I know how it is around ‘em town’s folk.’ 

Rick let out a sigh. ‘Exchanging body heat is the b-best excuse for hugging in public I can think of.’ 

‘Better not to risk it.’ Cliff said, gently squeezing Rick’s hand. ‘We’ll hug plenty when we get back to the hotel.’ 

‘Alright. I hope that’s a promise.’ Rick said with a sweet smile. 

Cliff didn’t get to look at it for too long. Their moment was interrupted by a huge snowball being thrown right at Rick’s head. Making snow splatter across both of them. 

‘M-motherf-f-fucker!’ Rick yelled, trying to get the snow off his hair and his clothes. 

‘Sorry mister!’ they heard a kid call from a couple feet away from them. He couldn’t have been any older than ten. It looked like he missed trying to hit his friend, (or a younger brother) and Rick and Cliff were just on the way. 

‘Jesus.’ Rick angrily muttered. 

‘Hey, it’s just kids...’ Cliff tried to reason, but Rick took his hand out of the glove and was already collecting snow from the ground to get his revenge. 

He threw a snowball at the kid, but the boy quickly dodged it. Rick immediately kneeled down to make another one and then Cliff noticed the actor’s wide smile. 

Cliff sat there on the bench, watching Rick having the time of his life participating in a snowball fight with two random kids. Rick got a couple of good hits on them, but clearly didn’t throw anything too hard not to actually hurt them. The two boys were relentless though, and Rick was completely wet from the snow in less than a couple of minutes. 

It didn’t get his mood down at all though, he kept laughing every time he got hit, and made a couple of dramatic yells that the kids found very funny. 

Suddenly the fight got out of hand, the older child threw a snowball a little to hard at the younger one, which made the boy fall and start crying. Cliff expected Rick to freak out and get out of that situation as fast as he could, but to his surprise he just told the older child to stop the fight. 

‘Hey, you alright?’ Cliff heard Rick say as he kneeled down and gently lifted the little kid off the snow. 

Him and Cliff both looked around to see if the kids’ parents were anywhere close, but it seemed like the two were at the park alone. 

‘I’m sorry.’ The older boy said, but the young one still kept crying. 

‘Maybe t-that’s enough playing for today, huh?’ Rick said to both of them. ‘Are you guys brothers?’ 

The two nodded at the same time. 

‘Hey...’ Rick shushed the crying child. ‘There ain’t nothing to be c-crying for, it’s just a bit of snow.’ Rick said softly to the little one, and it seemed to work on his mood. ‘You and your brother should head back home, have a cup of hot chocolate to warm yourself up, huh? Ain’t that a g-good plan?’ 

Cliff found himself very impressed as to how Rick handled all of that. He never thought about it much, but he did notice Rick was really good with kids. Cliff always considered that a very lovable trait, and seeing as he himself always wanted to have children knowing Rick would be a great dad filled him with a lot of joy. Billie never wanted kids, and trying to get her to change her mind was a futile job, so maybe with Rick it would actually be possible... 

What the hell was he thinking? They have just barely started dating and Cliff’s already thinking about kids? Oh how hard has he fallen. 

‘Yeah, we’ll go.’ Cliff heard he older kid say as he grabbed his brother’s hand. ‘Thank you mister, you’re a great snowball fighter.’ 

‘I think you two won this one.’ Rick said, pointing to his wet coat. It made the two boys chuckle. ‘Take care!’ 

‘Bye!’ 

Cliff watched the whole scene with a smile on his face and a lot of admiration. He hasn’t seen Rick that happy in a while, so he thought maybe the activity shouldn’t end when the kids left the park. 

Cliff decided it would be best to continue the fight, so he himself grabbed a huge pile of snow and aimed right at Rick. 

His aim didn’t fail him and he hit Rick straight at the back of the head, a little harder than he wanted to, but nothing too bad. 

Rick turned around with an angry expression that made Cliff laugh really hard. 

‘Asshole! I’m w-wet enough!’ Rick shouted and wasted no time throwing his own snowball, as accurately aimed as Cliff’s. 

They got a couple of decent hits on each other and found the whole thing very funny and entertaining. So much so Cliff completely forgot about the cold even after being hit in the face plenty of times. 

Rick was the first one that ended up slipping on the ice and falling on his back. Cliff could see him laughing as he laid there, but when he wasn’t getting up Cliff actually got concerned. 

‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ Rick said when Cliff ran up closer to him. 

‘You sure? That looked like a hard fall.’ Cliff said with a smile, looking down at his boyfriend. His hair was a complete mess, and his whole face was red and wet from the cold and snow, but he looked just as pretty as usual. 

‘I’m not an old m-man like you, so it won’t kill me.’ Rick teased. 

‘Come here...’ Cliff said and extended his hand to help Rick to his feet. 

The actor had different plans though, and yanked Cliff’s arm, dragging him down to the ground with him. 

Cliff ended up face first in the snow, all he could hear was Rick’s loud laughter. He managed to roll over to his back but Rick wouldn’t let him get up and pinned him down to the ground. 

‘Fuck you.’ Cliff said. 

Rick only mischievously smiled at that. The two laid there for a hot second, looking at each other’ faces and just relishing in the moment, admiring how lucky they both were. 

Rick’s sight travelled downwards, right at Cliff’s lips. When the stuntman noticed Rick was actually leaning in for a kiss he was quick to put a bit of a distance between them. 

‘Rick, public space.’ He calmly said, before Rick had a chance to think something wrong and get upset. 

Rick’s expression quickly changed. There was a bit of panic in his eyes at the moment he realized what he was doing. He quickly got up and with awkward movements started patting his clothes to get the snow off. 

‘S-sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t know what—what’s gotten into me.’ Rick spoke. 

‘Don’t apologize man, I’m just looking out for ya’. You know I’d kiss you if I could.’ 

‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’ Rick sighed, running a hand through his wet and messed up hair. ‘I’m such a fucking idiot.’ 

‘Hey...’ Cliff stared, but was quickly cut off. 

‘S-sometimes I’m so p-p-paranoid about this stuff and o-other times I completely fucking forget. I need to get a f-fucking grip...’ 

‘Hey, Rick, no crying.’ Cliff said when he noticed how his boyfriend’s voice broke. ‘Your lashes are gonna freeze over if you start crying.’ 

Rick laughed, that comment broke the tension enough for Rick to calm down and the two quickly forgot about the previous conversation. 

They stood there in the snow for a moment, and now that nothing else was happening they remember how fucking cold they were. Rick shivered as he looked down at himself and evaluated how wet his clothes were. Too wet was the conclusion. 

‘W-we should go back to the hotel.’ He said. He started going through his pockets and furrowed his brows when he didn’t find what he was looking for. ‘Shit, did I—Did I loose my glove?’ 

‘Nah, I still got it.’ Cliff said, lifting his left hand. Rick smiled. Surprisingly he didn’t ask Cliff to return it. ‘I agree we should get back. I don’t want you getting sick.’ 

‘Come on, I won’t.’ Rick waved his hand. ‘I n-need to get myself warmed up though. I’m fucking freezing.’ 

‘You know what...’ Cliff smirked. ‘I’m not that cold anymore.’ 

‘Fuck off.’ Rick chuckled. ‘T-that’s too bad... You know m-my room has a pretty big bath, I was gonna in-invite you, but since you’re not that cold...’ 

‘On second thought...’ Cliff interrupted. ‘I might be _a little_ cold...’ 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading <3 don't be shy to leave some feedback, also check me ot on twitter and insta @ yokiter I make art


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